Phew, what a long day! We’ve only just got into our room, 9pm is a late finish, but again, we had fun 🙂 Nice breakfast, then onto the bus and fought our way through Toronto’s morning traffic snarls. Along the highways, admiring the colours of autumn as the trees change. It’s only the maple trees that change colour to the brilliant reds, purple and oranges – and there’s 70 different varieties! The other tree’s leaves simply go yellow and then fall (fall … ha! get it? jeez, I kill me sometimes). We stopped at Kingston for lunch, Lorraine had what is becoming her favourite over here – poutine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poutine while I had a slice of pizza (a bit doughy compared to ours, as is the bread and rolls). From there, out along the lake past the Thousand Islands – apparently, a chef (the private chef to the owner of the Waldorf Astor Hotel chain) was trying to duplicate the colour of the local rock formations and created a salad dressing called … wait for it … Thousand Island Dressing! Driving, driving …. zzzzzz … huh? Oh, Ottawa! We stopped at the Canadian Museum for 2 hours .. you need 2 days! This is what all museums should be!! Fantastic panoramic displays setup as actual buildings, homes, shops and shipyards, we wandered through with mouths agape and learnt heaps of Canadian history and weird little factoids (great for trivia nights – did you know that the horse has the largest eye of all land mammals?). I took a photo outside of two really nice people we’ve clicked with, Julie and George (he’s a stirrer, she puts up with him, sound familiar?). From there, we went to Turtle Island and the Aborginal Experience. Jumped into a canoe and paddled around the river while the guides (French) explained about the fur trade (beaver pelts were traded and the English made them into Top Hats),  trappers and early settlement of the region. Back to shore for a great dinner, explanation of the teepee, wigwam, long house and more and then native dances. Those dancers … wow!! They can really move, especially the “hoop dance”! I took some night photos of the parliment building, we’ll be visiting those more tomorrow. Ahhh, just finished another bottle of Canadian Club, time for bed!

PS Mrs Always Right thinks the First Nations (“the traditional owners of the land” as we call them) people have a wonderful history to share …look up the hoop dance on google …it was brilliant , something that will stick in my mind for a long time …sensational …XXXX

PPS Note that Mr Right is becoming a postcard  photographer…. good memories though …XXXX